As is known to those skilled in the art, many (portable) electronic devices comprise a charging control module which is arranged to recharge their (rechargeable) batteries and one or more of their internal applications with currents when connected to a charger (which in its turn is connected to the mains) via their plug sockets.
More precisely, the charging control module controls the charge state and the temperature of the battery and supplies it with a current when the charge state is lower than a chosen threshold and when its temperature is within a chosen interval, and supplies each internal application with the current it requires for operating under certain circumstances.
The current ICH provided by the charger to the charging control module is constant. So, when an application requires an application current IA for its operation while the charge state of the battery is below the chosen threshold and its temperature is within the chosen interval, the current IB that the charging control module is capable of providing to the battery for charging purposes is limited (IB=ICH−IA). This current IB being lower than the maximum current fixed by the battery manufacturer (usually equal to 1 C, i.e. one times the battery capacity) and required to charge the battery quickly (i.e. when there is no internal application being supplied), the battery charging time increases when an application consumes a portion of the current ICH.
Moreover, when the battery temperature is outside the chosen interval, the charging control module stops delivering any current either to the battery or to the operational application (ICH=0). Therefore, the battery charging is stopped and the battery discharges itself in supplying the operational application.
It is accordingly an object of this invention to improve this situation, and more precisely to cause the battery charge state to remain constant when battery charging is forbidden, and as far as possible to enable the battery charging time to remain approximately constant.